Posts Tagged ‘mom

I received my first school card and gift that Drake made in school. LOVE, Love , love!

Picture Frame. The little bugs are made from his fingerprints.

Mother’s Day card featuring his first school pic!

Then we did our Mom’s Day outing on Saturday instead of Sunday. We took Drake to the Boone County Community Fair and to Spring Fest at Kinman Farms. He had his first hayride and petting zoo experience! Then we had our first family picnic at the park and played around until the thunderstorms came.

It was an awesome weekend, and I was so thankful to Gammy for watching Drake all day Friday. I was able to finish all but one section of my draft for my first assessment paper so I had the time to play hooky this weekend.

Today we have our annual follow-up with Orthopedics at Cincinnati Children’s. This will complete our round of follow-ups that run December to March. The only other appointments D will have until next December will be his therapy visits and any sick visits. Talk about an awesome milestone!

I am nervous about today. He will get x-rays of his feet to make sure that all the bones are still growing in the right direction and that we are using his “nite-nite shoes” properly to maintain the correction. I’m also going to have his Ortho surgeon check out the recommendations we have from his physical therapist so we can see what move she thinks we should make about his low tone and hypermobile joints. He’s getting around much better these days, but PT is worried about injury or too much stretching to his ankle ligaments without support now.

When prematurity first struck, I went into salvage mode. For a while, I was just slammed with hormones, with emotions, medical issues, insurance issues, and dealing with the rest of the world issues. Then the first year was medical thing after medical thing worse than the NICU for us. The second year was about growth. I found my groove. Things with D got exponentially better with the right medical and development team.

Recently, with D going to school two days a week, I have increased my work hours and started remembering that I love my job and I was really good at it. I am so thankful that they allowed me the flexibility both to bring him to work on occasion or work from home as needed. I didn’t have to make some hard choices my work was as great a support system as my family.

Now, I’m ready to get back to some things I had planned for during my medical leave that I put on hold. I’m investigating some Master degree programs that will allow me to continue my current work in higher education while possibly preparing me for involvement with curriculum development or even classroom training.

I feel more ME than I have in a long time, and I think that is as good for my family and its future as it is for me.

We just started our first family team for the March of Dimes March for Babies 2013 walk. We’ll be participating in the Greater Cincinnati/NKY one. So far we have 4 family members/1 good friend and we’re about halfway to our team goal. Yay Team Drake!

One of my husband’s co-workers shared her preemie experience with twins. They are now 20 and in college. They were in the same NICU where Drake had his stay. I love it. Preemie success stories remind you that your hope and dreams for your child’s full life aren’t dashed. That no matter what their struggles may be health or development-wise most likely they have long, full lives ahead of them and so do you.

I’m not a fan of New Year’s resolutions. I tend to forget to track them about 2-3 weeks into the year. I only have one thing I am resolved to accomplish this year. I WILL TAKE JOY IN MY SON’S JOURNEY.

That’s what this blog is for. It’s for me to “write it all out” and get peace in my heart, mind, and soul so I can be a good mama to this amazing warrior child.

My son is going through treatment for clubfoot. On Tuesday, he had his Achilles procedure and final three week cast put on. We’ll be done with phase and into 23 hour bracing by mid-June. His treatment has gone exceptionally well. He was supposed to have 5 weekly casts and then this one, but ended up only needing 3 weekly casts.

The Super Preemie. This is his pediatrician’s nickname for Drake. He’s been gaining well since the metabolic scare and 26 calorie days. We’ve been blessed. We’ve been lucky.

Inguinal hernia occurs in 30% of preemies. Especially male preemies.

On Tuesday night, I started his bedtime routine about 8pm with a diaper change. Hmm, that doesn’t look right. Called the hubby in. That’s not supposed to look like that right? Looked it up on our local Children’s hospital site (I avoid Dr. Google for my own sanity). He didn’t have emergency level symptoms, so I rocked him through his nightly crying moments trying to keeping him calm so the hernia didn’t worsen.

Our pediatric group opens at 8am. I had an 855 appointment by 8:05. My diagnosis guess was confirmed by 9:15 and we had a referral to the children’s surgery group with a warning that it would take 1-2 weeks for an appointment.

Our job for the next two weeks is to keep a 3 month old, 1 month adjusted infant from having straining crying fits. And to not panic over the promised minimum 1 night stay at the hospital.

I’ve kept him isolated for 2 months to keep from going back to the hospital. I need to remember I can’t protect him from my body or his developing one. It’s out of my hands.